First post, by jackazz
- Rank
- Newbie
Hello everybody,
I've been following Vogons for a while and today I've decided to register and start a thread. Wanna know something about me? I live in Italy and study screenwriting, I'm definitely an old games nostalgic and now ready to power up the retro rig I've been looking forward to for years.
When I was a child I used to have a 486 equipped with DOS and Windows 3.1. I remember playing Spear of Destiny and Aces of The Pacific. Can't also forget Rebel Assault... which obliged me to buy an external, prehistoric CD-ROM drive!
Then came a PII with a Matrox Millennium G200. I shared that with my little brother. My first PC was an AMD Athlon 733 wth 128MB of RAM and a Geforce 256 equipped. Good old times. Apart from the video card and W98, constantly crashing.
LET'S CUT THAT OUT! 😁
What I'm asking you is to give me an advice about a couple of retro configs I found available these days, near where I live. I used almost every MS operating system and I am aware of DOS syntax. Don't call me veteran, but neither newbie.
I'm simply in doubt about choosing the best configuration. What would you choose, in my place?
Keep in mind I would like to have a dual boot system with both W95 and W98 installed. I'd like to play DOS games (like Terminator Skynet, Duke 3D, etc.), early Windows games (like Dark Earth, Carmageddon, Battlezone) and 3D games up to Directx 7 (like Omikron: The Nomad Soul and crappy-engines-star-wars-games such as Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron 3D).
HERE'S WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT 😊
#1
Pentium III 500 MHz
64mb RAM
6gb Hard Drive
S3 Trio (or Savage)
3DFX Voodoo Banshee
CD-ROM drive
#2
Pentium III 833 MHz
640mb RAM (256+256+128) ...might remove 1 or 2 blocks if too fast
40gb Hard Drive
Geforce MX 220
CD-ROM drive
#3
Pentium III 500 MHz
160mb RAM
15gb Hard Drive
Matrox Millennium G400 Dual Head
CD-ROM drive
So what? I might shock you but my actual preference is...
Number 3! Why, you'll ask yourself. The fact that I had a G200 doesn't count that much. No affective motivations.
I'd choose the third option because I'm scared that #2 will be too powerful for what I'm looking for. I've googled Pentium III and Windows 95 and found good and bad things about their relationship. And that's why I'm writing here... in hope that someone with better knowledge will come and help. Number 3 seems like a good balance between 1 and 2.
What about #1? I like Banshee but not that much. And I'm worried that this configuration will not give me the exact range I'm looking for: DOS-W95-Directx 7.
That said, I always heard good things about the g400. Is this card as fast as the 1st Geforce 256? Is it even comparable to it or just a little less powerful? In that case, that seems what I'm looking for. I heard that that Matrox card had, at the end of her cycle, good drivers and honest openGL support. I also heard it's good in DOS games, stable and suitable for early directx gaming. Am I wrong?
I wait for your suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help!